Václav Duda

* 1933

Victim of persecution due the forced agricultural collectivisation, Witnesses of local events connected to WWII, Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu, Farmer
15. 3. 1939 - The Nazi occupation of ČSR, 1. 9. 1939 - The outbreak of the WW2, 1944 - 1945 - The liberation of Czechoslovakia, 8. 5. 1945 - End of WWII, 25. 2. 1948 - Communist coup d‘état in ČSR
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    The newspapers said that Germany had surrendered (May 1945)

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    "Somewhere around the 9th, 10th of May, there was a primitive newspaper that said the war was over. The radio was not working, the electricity was not going, and there [in the paper] was that the war was over, that Germany had surrendered. But there were quite a few Soviet soldiers staying here. But a bit further, there was not much more fighting, I think. The end of the war was here. But the Russians had been here quite a long time, I am not able to say how long, but they had lived here for a long time. And the violence against the women, that lasted only one day, right at the liberation. But after that, it sort of calmed down. We had Russians living in the rooms in the front, too, but after that, they behaved civilized. But the violence, they did that, I would say, right in the liberation, in the war."

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    That was our first meeting with Russian soldiers (25 April 1945)

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    duration: 00:49
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    "The fact is that we were waiting for the Russians. My father went to greet them, took the last piece of bread we had, a piece of bacon, a glass of slivovitz and went to greet them. And one of them took the bread, the second the bacon, the third the slivovitz, and the fourth said to him: 'Kotoryy seychas chas?' My father took out his watch – he had a pocket watch – and told him what time it was, and he said: 'Day mne na pamyat'.' He took his watch and that was our first meeting with the Russian soldiers. This is the reality, I am not afraid to say it, this is the truth."

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    I was so scared. There is still a hole in our gate (April 1945)

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    "I remember it very well, I was 12 years old and very scared. As the Soviet planes were fighting here, we were picking it up all over the ground, big cartridge casings like that, it had a calibre of twenty-two millimetres. And when they were firing these machine guns, it was terrible. I remember I was scared, really scared. When the planes started shooting, I was shaking with fear, what was going to happen. Those were, I would say, the worst moments of that front time that we had here. And one artillery shell in particular fell in our yard and exploded here. My father was walking to the cattle and as he was walking, he got a shrapnel in the back of his shoulder blade. He went to this Dr. Sovadin at the time and he pulled it out and my father did fine, he was mobile. But we still have a hole in the gate to this day, when it blew up here and the shrapnels flew, we have a hole there like half an inch. It is still there to this day. It does not bother, so we did not do anything to remove it."

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    Soldiers used to sleep at our place on the threshing floor (September 1938)

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    "I do not know of anyone directly in my family who enlisted. But we had a few horses stabled in the threshing floor of our house here, and several soldiers slept here during the mobilization. We even kept in touch with them after the war. They used to come and talk to us as they slept on the threshing floor somewhere in the straw. I cannot pinpoint it, but it is true. There were several horses stabled in our threshing floor, I do not know how many, I was not a big boy, I was a little boy, but I remember it very well. And I used to meet with one of the sons of those soldiers until recently. He was from Brno, from Obřany. And his father lived here and the whole family used to come here. The one from Obřany was called Šoman. And they used to come to us, even in the 1950s they used to come here now and then."

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    Ostopovice, 08.07.2021

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    duration: 01:47:15
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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The machine guns were firing, I was 12 years old and shaking with fear

Václav Duda in 2021
Václav Duda in 2021
photo: Post Bellum
photo: Post Bellum
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Václav Duda was born on 5 December 1933 in Brno. His paternal uncles, Eduard and Stanislav Duda, were killed in the World War I. Václav Duda spent practically his whole life in the village of Ostopovice in the Brno-venkov district, where his parents, Václav and Marie Duda, owned a farm, which helped them to survive the war. Václav Duda remembers everyday life in Ostopovice against the backdrop of the mobilization, the Nazi occupation and the liberation accompanied by shelling and violence. After the war, he finished primary school and then worked on the family farm, which the family lost by being forced to join an agricultural cooperative in the 1950s. In 1953 he married Marie, née Navrátilová. A week later the newlyweds lost their savings and financial gifts due to the currency reform. In 1953–1955 he completed his compulsory military service in Frýdek-Místek, during which he participated in the First Nationwide Spartakiad (1955). After the war he worked in the Ostopovice agricultural cooperative (JZD), after the merger in the 1970s JZD Bobrava Moravany. He initially drove a tractor in the agricultural cooperative, then worked as an official – yet he never joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He retired in 1993. At the time of the interview (2021) Václav Duda lived in Ostopovice.

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